Zhu Qizhan information

Zhu Qizhan (Chinese: 朱屺瞻; Wade–Giles: Chu Ch'i-chan; May 27, 1892 – April 20, 1996) was a Chinese artist known for merging the color concepts of Western art and the calligraphic brushwork of traditional Chinese painting into a personal style.

Zhu Qizhan, courtesy name Qizhai, art name Erzhan Laomin, was a native of Taicang, Jiangsu province. In 1912, he entered the Shanghai Fine Arts College. In 1917 he studied Western oil painting with the prominent painter Fujishima Takeji (1867-1945) at the Kawabata Art School in Tokyo.

He taught in the Shanghai Fine Arts College and Shanghai Xinhua Private Art School when he was young. He became a first-class artist in the Shanghai Academy of Chinese Painting, an honorary professor of East China Normal University, and an honorary professor of the Fine Arts Department of Shanghai University. He also worked as the standing secretary of the Shanghai Artist Association, a consultant to the China Artist Association, and a consultant to the Xiling Seal Art Society. In 1991, he received the first Shanghai Literature and Art Outstanding Contribution Award.

In the 1950s, Zhu Qizhan traveled extensively in China sketching with brush and ink in the plein air. He drew on his impressions of the scenery during his lifetime. Although already in his nineties as China opened up again to the West, Zhu traveled internationally, initially to San Francisco where he painted a large artwork for the San Francisco International airport and a few years later to New York for his first solo exhibition in America at L.J. Wender Fine Chinese Painting where he demonstrated ink painting on ABC Eyewitness News.

The Chinese government has built a museum dedicated to him. He was present in May 1995 for the opening of the Zhu Qizhan Museum of Art in Shanghai. In 1996, he died at the age of 105 (East Asian age reckoning).